x-post -I read that stupid Parker article. She believes that Obama visiting John Edwards' state of North Carolina is somehow worse than anything Bush ever did, but the press just won't admit this.

Bush staffers were well familiar with this routine, which is why they never would have allowed him to be in such a situation. Perhaps, as another close political observer suggested to me, the Obama White House has no such concerns. The media simply do not come after Obama in the same way they did Bush, notwithstanding recent research showing that Obama received the most negative coverage of any presidential candidate during the Republican primary. The Bush White House was under siege and conducted itself accordingly. No T’s went uncrossed.

when parties fall apart they are usually replace by something more 'extreme'. the reason for a party's dissolution is usually that there is a need or an issue of its potential sympathizers that isn't being voiced as well as they'd like

Rich ppl between age 55 and death still run nearly everything. Too bad they live so damn long.

Well, something more "extreme" is mandatory to convert us from an economy entirely focused on the limitless gobbling of resources. One party refuses to acknowledge the possibility of such a move, the other barely does.

when parties fall apart they are usually replaced by something more 'extreme'. the reason for a party's dissolution is usually that there is a need or an issue of its potential sympathizers that isn't being voiced as well as they'd like

well atm the gop is in a process of whittling itself down to the extremist right ~30% of america and in the process throwing a lot of elections it can win - including this one. plus is boxed in by long-term demographics. that's really not sustainable 2nd party in the longer-term...it doesn't really need a single issue.

opposition to slavery was 'extreme' and totally unserved by any political party at the time until the republicans showed up. know-nothings served the interests of northern laborers via nativism; republicans followed by expressing that anxiety contra 'the slave power'

I say this a lot but comparing politics today to politics in the 1800s seems pretty fruitless.

one thing you can say is that the party system changes (nominally) v. infrequently.

another thing you can say is that the gop's politics just simply cannot sell on a national level forever + at the same time the only people left in the party are people who have had second helpings of kool aid.

another thing you can say is that the gop's politics just simply cannot sell on a national level forever + at the same time the only people left in the party are people who have had second helpings of kool aid.

Maybe not forever, but as I mentioned above, it's working pretty well for them now in many states and in parts of the US govt.

well some states have a lot of kool aid, the massive economic downturn gave the gop a lot of cover, and the american political system allows a minority senate to fuck shit up. but that doesn't mean the gop hasn't boxed itself into a really poor place nationally.

"I never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte blanche to large-scale producers and operators of marijuana – and the reason is, because it’s against federal law. I can’t nullify congressional law. I can’t ask the Justice Department to say, “Ignore completely a federal law that’s on the books” . . . .

The same person who directed the DOJ to shield torturers and illegal government eavesdroppers from criminal investigation, and who voted to retroactively immunize the nation’s largest telecom giants when they got caught enabling criminal spying on Americans, and whose DOJ has failed to indict a single Wall Street executive in connection with the 2008 financial crisis or mortgage fraud scandal, suddenly discovers the imperatives of The Rule of Law when it comes to those, in accordance with state law, providing medical marijuana to sick people with a prescription.

As the GOP nominee to challenge Toledo Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur in the 2012 election, Wurzelbacher recently made news again when the Christian Broadcasting Network website published a letter he wrote about Obama’s religious faith as well as his own Christian beliefs. Wurzelbacher told the website he plans to distribute the letter titled: ‘I’m Blessed to be a Christian," to churches during his upcoming congressional campaign.

Wurzelbacher’s letter doesn’t address Kaptur. It mostly dwells on Obama. Wurzelbacher says he believes Obama is a Christian, and it’s not Christian for people to say otherwise.

Wurzelbacher’s letter also provided a colorful rendition of Obama’s background:

"Imagine being the child of a mixed-race marriage - especially in the turbulent 60’s and free-wheeling 70’s," his letter said. "And when you throw in that dad was a Muslim and mom an atheist - you know it could not have been easy - and they were communists for crying out loud!"

And Mike Lofgren, a veteran Republican congressional staffer, wrote an anguished diatribe last year about why he was ending his career on the Hill after nearly three decades. “The Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe,” he wrote on the Truthout Web site.

Al Armendariz, a mid-level official at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) since 2009, resigned this week after conservatives expressed outrage at a metaphor he invoked at a town hall meeting nearly two years ago.

Armendariz, who took leave from Southern Methodist University to join the administration, commented at a meeting back in 2010 that the EPA’s enforcement policy was to find “people who are not compliant with the law, and you hit them as hard as you can and you make examples out of them.”

“It was kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean,” he said. “They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they would crucify them. And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years. And so you make examples out of people who are in this case not compliant with the law.”

Critics focused on the “crucify” comment after climate-change skeptic Sen. James Inhofe (R) posted the video on to his web site. The calls for Armendariz’s resignation soon followed. On Sunday, he obliged.